One of the biggest advantages slim will bring is a psychological break for consumers from the RROD fiasco.  It's a "new" more reliable 360, and I fully expect Microsoft marketing and PR to capitalize on that.

Besides remodels almost always reinvigorate the market (GB Pocket, PSone, GBA SP, PS2 slim, DS Lite, PS3 slim, etc).  And I fully expect the slim to be buffered by a real pricedrop (not simply value adding) on one side and Natal on the other.  It's more of a platform relaunch, and is much the same sort of thing PS3 went through last fall.

yes. xbox 120gig elite is 175 with a game.

I fully understand that  - I'm just not convinced the Xbox brand is as associated with such remodels and as a result I think the impact will be less than a Sony or Nintendo remodel.  I just don't believe the 360 demographic will be as fussed by a slim and I don't think it will be taken as a relaunch in quite the same way.

I could be wrong, but that's my feeling at the moment.  The market is in a sense conditioned to eat up Sony/Nintendo revisions but not Xbox ones at this point.  I'm actually not sure how much difference the Slim element of the PS3 made vs the lower price either.

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Sorry, but that sounds like a pretty arbitrary distinction.  Brands aren't that delineated by consumer base, plenty of people who will buy 360 slims bought PS2 slims last generation...

jarrod, do you expect the 360 to consistantly outsell the PS3 worldwide once the slim/price cut (assuming there´s a price cut to go along with the new design, of course) is out?...if you do, by how much do you see the 360 outselling the PS3?

I think it more likely will consistently outsell PS3 ww from say September (slim/Reach) through March (Gears 3), but not by much.   The big push ahead will be America, Europe will be close with PS3 possibly even still eeking out ahead (thanks GT5!), Japan is lol.

Not really.  I work in retail demand forecasting and optimization as a business consultant and in fact demand influencers often vary by brand and association with a brand.

For example do you expect a 'slim' version of a Nintendo console?  I don't, really.

I'd say it's pretty likely the idea of slim meaning more desirable is more linked to Sony brand than any of the others.  To be honest, given the status of the consoles this gen, I'm not convinced that the early slim PS3 really drove that much additional sales, it looks from the data I see that it was more driven by the price drop associated with the new model - at least here in Europe which is what we're talking about.

For the average buyer I'd be willing to bet they don't even notice the switch to a slim unless it was associated with a price drop, and it's the drop I'm pretty convinced drives the demand, not the slim.

In US I think a 360 slim would perhaps drive more interest but I'm not convinced across Europe with the exception of UK which seems determined to be a mini US this gen.

Now is MS would release a slim at the same price then we'd see if the slim angle was the draw.

The PS3 proved consumers care more about price than the "slim" model, to many people I think the new form factor looked a lot cheaper and less classy than the outgoing model but the 25% cut in price was a huge attraction.  There will always be some people interested in a new form factor for a console but not enough to sustain a boost for any of the manufacturers more than any other imo.

I think the 360 is in fairness a new instance that is even harder to comment on as we've never had a console with such a high failure rate getting a comprehensive redesign like it will have.  If Microsoft market it well and its build quality is good then they could attract some ex 360 customers back who lost all faith in the original form factor too.

One thing that is for certain we can agree on.  The only guaranteed long term boost to sales is a price cut to the entry level model for the 360.

Half Nintendo's consoles historically have gotten "slim" revisions.  Seems like something Nintendo likes to do when they have a market leader...